Messing about on the river…Banbury Canal Day

It feels like it was such a long time ago, but it was only last weekend.  Yes, it was the time of year for Banbury Canal Day.  The last couple of years have been wonderful weather and great fun, so nothing was going to stop us going away.

As last year we didn’t get to go for a canal boat ride due to the queues being far too long, my mission was to head straight for the boat rides as soon as Canal day opened.  It worked brilliantly, and we didn’t have to queue at all.  Just wait for the boat to be ready to go, and for it to fill up with other people wanting to go along for the ride.

N had been really keen to begin with, but walking past the extremely loud music seemed to put him off a bit.

Nevertheless, he was helped onto the canal boat, and we found some seats.  N didn’t want to sit up front, he was happy to relax in a deck chair while I was able to get photographing everything I could see.

We spotted swans who seemed to want to follow the canal boat,

But mostly it was the canal itself that looked beautiful on that morning.

I definitely think we’ll have to take more walks along the canal path in future.  It’s not a walk (either direction) that I’ve ever done.

The funniest bit was when the volunteer offered to take a photo of us at a point when N was sitting with me…then proceeded to take a photo of us along with the other random father and child who were also sitting with us.  Cue laughter from us, although the volunteer seemed to have no idea even though it was obvious that we had never met before. Strange!

We walked back up the canalside, checking out what was around.  Canal day always has lots of charity stalls, gifts stalls, there’s a food area and a craft market.  The food always looks amazing

Usually we grab some lunch there, and this year decided on pancakes.  I think we never have them enough, so we shared a savoury and a sweet one.  Delicious.

N wouldn’t let me walk back the other side of the canal to see what was going on until he’d had a go on the playground. Sod that it was packed full of children. That wasn’t going to stop him.  I love how he stands his ground when other children want to go the wrong way up slides etc when he’s sitting at the top waiting to go down!

The canal always looks amazing.  The boat owners dress their canal boats (and themselves).  This year had a (random) cowboys and indians theme, which I’d forgotten about, otherwise I’d have dressed N in his cowboy outfit.

The balloons and flowers looked stunning as well.  N loves standing on the bridge and watching the canoeists and boats go by.

And I loved the knitted/felt miniature boats on display on this craft boat.

We watched a canal boat going through the lock at well.  Children seem to be able to spend ages watching the locks at work, but I was checking out some of the old metal work around the lock area.

It’s a lovely day out, and one I’m sure we’ll be doing in future again.  Next year N will be old enough to go on the children’s go karts, so he’ll be dragging me over to those if he spots them.

Try these other days out ideas in Oxfordshire.